Research

Researching Innovative Energy Solutions

ARC Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Exci­ton Sci­ence

The ARC Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Exci­ton Sci­ence brings to­gether in­ter­na­tio­n­al re­search­ers to dis­cov­er and use new ways to source en­er­gy. The goal of this co­op­er­a­tion is to dis­cov­er and de­vel­op new ways to har­ness sun­light for en­er­gy stor­age; de­vel­op more en­er­gy ef­fi­cient de­vices for light gen­er­a­tion; and al­so look at op­ti­cal sen­sors for se­cu­ri­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tal ap­pli­ca­tions. BAU KUNST ERFIN­D­EN de­vel­ops the in­te­gra­tion of dye-sen­si­tized so­lar cells (DSCs) in­to pre­fab­ri­cat­ed con­crete seg­ments. Ar­eas of ap­pli­ca­tion in­clude ar­chi­tec­tu­ral and prod­uct de­sign, as well as dig­i­tal fab­ri­ca­tion and con­struc­tion.

DysCrete Façade Robot

The goal of the PLOT­BOT/CRAWLER re­search pro­ject is to de­vel­op a web-based, sen­sor-guid­ed au­to­ma­ton – a mo­bile robot that can be used to func­tio­n­al­ize build­ing sur­faces via the ap­pli­ca­tion of com­plex lay­er sys­tems. Its thor­ough
in­te­gra­tion of tool and soft­ware log­ic al­lows it to be guid­ed over the sur­faces of struc­tu­ral el­e­ments in re­al time, re­gard­less of ge­ome­try, or di­rect­ed to fol­low a pre­pro­grammed pat­tern.

Para­met­ri­cal­ly Op­ti­mized Lightweight Acous­tic Ab­sor­ber

The PO­LA re­search pro­ject cen­ters on the de­vel­op­ment of a new sys­tem for the at­ten­u­a­tion of low-mi­drange and bass fre­quen­cies, fea­tur­ing lightweight uni­tized con­struc­tion cus­tomiz­able to any in­door or out­door lo­ca­tion.

By im­ple­ment­ing Sound Con­trol/ Sound Lis­ten­ing - a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary area of re­search - we add another per­cep­tu­al per­spec­tive to the re­search plat­form BUILD­ING ART IN­VEN­TION. On­go­ing re­search fo­cus­es on the de­vel­op­ment of a nov­el tech­nique of sound re­duc­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly in re­gards to bass fre­quen­cies, a sys­tem for public space that can be used in­side as well as out­side.

WO­VEN WOOD

SAL­IX RE­GIO­N­ALIS 3D is a re­search and de­vel­op­ment pro­ject that seeks to turn flex­i­ble strips of wood in­to wo­ven lat­tices op­ti­mized for use as 3D mold­ed sur­faces. Pro­ject fund­ing is pro­vid­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­a­tion of In­dus­trial Re­search As­so­ci­a­tions.

A RAPID MAN­U­FAC­TUR­ING JOIN­ERY MA­CHINE

With sup­port from the Ger­man Fed­er­a­tion of In­dus­trial Re­search As­so­ci­a­tions, Build­ing Art In­ven­tion has launched a new re­search and de­sign pro­ject to de­vel­op an in­no­va­tive web-aug­ment­ed ma­chine for the pro­duc­tion of cus­tom wood con­struc­tions with milled joints. An easy-to-use all-in-one ma­chine, a stan­dardized join­ery sys­tem, an app-based in­ter­face, and an on­line plat­form for the exchange and eval­u­a­tion of de­signs are com­bined to cre­ate a new kind of tool. Estab­lished wood­work­ing meth­ods, in­clud­ing in­dus­trial-scale pro­cess­es, are refined and brought to­gether in an in­tel­li­gent sys­tem that is flex­i­ble and us­er-friend­ly. Us­ing a log­i­cal­ly in­ter­linked sys­tem of tools and ma­te­rials, dig­i­tal de­signs can be turned in­to com­po­nents that are then as­sem­bled in­to ob­jects and struc­tures.

Na­t­u­ral forces as trans­for­ma­tive pro­cess­es on sur­faces

The MAG­NET­IC PAT­TERN­ING OF CON­CRETE pro­ject ex­plores pos­si­bil­i­ties and strate­gies for the use of mag­net­ic fields to struc­ture and de­sign sur­faces and ma­te­rials. Here we find two op­pos­ing ap­proach­es: the se­lec­tive po­si­tion­ing of in­di­vi­d­u­al par­ti­cles and the sys­te­m­at­ic gen­er­a­tion of par­ti­cle fields.

co­op­er­a­tion pro­ject with the Ger­manUni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy in Oman (GUtech)

The pro­ject "Lo­cal Re­sources  New Ma­te­rials" fund­ed by the Ger­man Aca­dem­ic Exchange Ser­vice DAAD fo­cus­es on the re­ac­ti­va­tion and evo­lu­tion of the knowl­edge of the use of tra­di­tio­n­al build­ing ma­te­rials in Oman.

Light Re­flect­ing Con­crete

BlingCrete rep­re­sents a new genre of ma­te­rials with its own log­ic of ef­fect. BlingCrete com­bines the pos­i­tive char­ac­teris­tics of con­crete (fire safe­ty, so­lid­i­ty, build­ing
meth­ods) with those of retrore­flec­tion. Retrore­flect­ing sur­faces send in­com­ing rays of light (sun­light or ar­ti­fi­cial light) back pre­cise­ly in the di­rec­tion of the source. This op­ti­cal pheno­menon is pro­duced by embed­d­ing glass mi­cro­spheres in the sub­s­trate ma­te­rial. The BlingCrete sur­face is ac­ti­vat­ed de­pend­ing on the po­si­tion of sur­face, light source and re­cipi­ent. The con­crete changes from a pas­sive to an ac­tive state. BlingCrete cre­ates im­mer­sive en­vi­ron­ments by low-tech ana­logue modes.

A Float­ing Plat­form for Art and Sci­ence

A de­com­mis­sioned ship, which was re­tired af­ter 40 years of pas­sen­ger ves­sel ser­vice, will be trans­formed in­to the MS IM-PORT//EX-PORT, a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary plat­form for art an sci­ence on the riv­er Ful­da. The ship of­fers a unique set of ameni­ties at a river­side site in the cen­ter of Kas­sel. Dur­ing dOC­U­MEN­TA(13), it will pro­vide a unique in­ter­face be­tween the uni­ver­si­ty, its art school, the ci­ty of Kas­sel and the in­ter­na­tio­n­al public.

Re­search and pro­to­typ­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries

The DIY labs are re­search and pro­to­typ­ing lab­o­ra­to­ries shared by both stu­dents and aca­dem­ic staff. It pro­vides an in­ter­face be­tween re­search, teach­ing and artis­tic ex­per­i­men­ta­tion. The goal is to de­vel­op al­ter­na­tive ways of solv­ing problems of all kinds. High-tech/low-bud­get machines are bee­ing built, f.e. a so­lar cell, a CNC milling mashine, a RepRap open-source 3-D prin­t­er.

NOISE CON­TROL / SOUND­ING SUR­FACES

The SOUND lab is shared by both stu­dents and aca­dem­ic staff for the ex­plo­ra­tion of son­ic pheno­m­e­na and their au­di­tive per­cep­tion. It is in use for the re­search pro­ject Noise Con­trol/Sound­ing Sur­faces. Ad­di­tio­n­al­ly the SOUND lab can be used for free ex­per­i­men­ta­tion with sound in the con­text of teach­ing and artis­tic work. The SOUND lab f.e. pro­vides pro­fes­sio­n­al au­dio mon­i­tor­ing, mo­bile re­cord­ing equip­ment, mi­cro­phones and mea­sur­ing in­stru­ments.

The SA­LON UNI­VER­SI­TAS hosts artists, sci­en­tists, writ­ers and cu­ra­tors. We aim to estab­lish sti­m­u­lat­ing dia­logue around chang­ing themes, lead­ing to a pro­duc­tive net­work of in­ter­est­ed in­di­vi­d­u­als with an eye to fa­cil­i­tat­ing art/sci­ence col­lab­o­ra­tion.